


Coevolution: White Lies

by unkissed



Series: Coevolution [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Consensual Infidelity, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hogwarts Drop Out Albus, Hogwarts Drop Out Scorpius, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Internet, Jealousy, M/M, Muggle Technology, Muggles, Open Relationships, POV First Person, Rock Star Albus, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Sex Tapes, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:30:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkissed/pseuds/unkissed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Albus Severus is a fucking rock star.</p><p>Albus drops out of Hogwarts and leaves Scorpius behind to pursue a muggle career in music.   The strain of separation tests their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. After-Parties and Piercings

**Author's Note:**

> Gratitude goes out to my friend, inspiration, and writing partner, ColorfulStabwound.
> 
> Originally posted on goaskalbus.tumblr.com January 2015

**Coevolution: After-Parties and Piercings**

The first night on tour with The White Lies feels like the hardest.  It is the first night on my own in the muggle world, my first time in this part of England, my first big gig in a proper music venue rather than at some dive bar, and the first show I’ve ever played without Scorpius in the audience.  Tomorrow morning he’ll be boarding the Hogwarts Express without me, and I’ll be getting on a coach bus with my band, headed for South Yorkshire.

 

I’d be lying if I said our performance was stellar. It wasn’t horrible. I was nervous as hell, without my rock to ground me.  But we were good enough to warm up the audience for the headliners, You Handsome Devils. Not that anyone was paying much attention to us.  This is Sheffield, their home city, where they’re local pop-punk heroes.  We’re just a bunch of scrappy kids from the West Country that Rory, the front man, took a gamble on.

 

After the gig, we’re thrown into the fray of an after-party.  My band-mates and I aren’t wallflowers by any means, but this party easily trumps any impromptu basement rave we’ve been to – it makes all the Slytherin dorm debauchery look like a kids’ playdate in comparison. 

 

There’s lots of alcohol, all manner of muggle recreational chemicals, lots of girls wearing clothes that seem too small, and a general consensus that any of us are free to partake in any of the above regardless of our age.  It’s rather overwhelming. As the lead singer of my band, I’m under extra pressure to make sure that my guys and Rory’s guys get along, and it would just be rude to refuse the drinks and the drugs that they’re throwing at us.

 

So many of my firsts had been experienced with Scorpius, and all in one day, I’m being initiated into things without my usual partner in crime.  I’m high for the first time and Scorpius isn’t here to share this with me.  And because I’m completely fucked, I can’t even feel guilty about this fact.  I feel this unearthly sense of contentment, tinged with a shimmery edge of vague anxiety about making everyone love me.  I laugh too long at dumb jokes and let girls get a little too close.  Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

 

Until I go back to the single hotel room that I’m meant to share with Connor, Jamaal, and Daniel.  In the dark, I can’t tell which lump on the bed is who, but I’ve come down from my high just enough that I recognize that there are more lumps than band members.  And from the way the clusters of bed sheets are moving, and from the muffled wet sounds, I can tell that my boys are busy with some girls from the party. All I want to do is go to sleep, and in my half-high logic, I decide that the bathtub would be a good place to do that.

 

Alone in a dry, very hard, very uncomfortable tub, I come crashing down.  I come down so hard that I cry like a little boy.  I don’t know how to handle this sort of loneliness.  I miss Scorpius more than any of the days spent apart during school holidays.  In the pitch black of the bathroom, I feel like I’m out in space, drifting impossibly far away from Earth – away from humanity, away from love and comfort and happiness. It goes beyond just missing my boyfriend – I feel like I’m missing a limb.

 

 

This is tour – my highest highs and my lowest lows.

 

 

We start getting more attention on stage. Some of our dedicated YouTube followers find us along the way.  It isn’t long before we start winning over the crowd.  There is nothing like performing for people who like you, not because they have to (because they’re your friends), but because they genuinely enjoy what you’re doing.  The high from a cheering audience has absolutely nothing on any of the drugs backstage. When I see people actually singing along to words I wrote, I could just weep from pride and joy. It’s a positive feedback loop – the more the crowd loves us, the better we perform, the more they love us.

 

The intimate relationship I’ve been developing between my stage persona and my collective audience is the closest thing to sex with other people that I want.  Scorpius and I have this agreement.  We’re free to be with other people while I’m on tour.  I know that it looks like I’d suggested it so that I could liberate myself for all the free flowing sex that happens on the road – I swear to Merlin, this is not my intention.  I know it’s unfair to ask Scorpius to wait around for me, so I let him go. But the only person I have any interest in is Scorpius. 

 

The problem I’ve been having is that some people don’t understand that the sexual aura that I project isn’t for any one person. When I moan and growl and play my guitar like it’s an extension of my cock, it’s because I fucking love what the music does to me and I feed off the audience’s reaction.  Maybe it isn’t fair to them – to be this person on stage that they can never have off stage. Once the set is done, I’m back to being goofy little Albie.  But people see what they want, and they expect me to be that same Albus that they’d just seen sweat it out on stage like a creature in heat. 

 

After a few weeks of unswervingly refusing the advances of every girl at every backstage gathering and after-party, word gets around that I’m not interested in women – which is great for a while. Until people catch on to the fact that I’m gay and then it spreads like wildfire.  (Rita Skeeter has nothing on muggle social media.) Then the fanboys descend.

 

And my highest highs quickly spiral down to my lowest lows.

 

 

~//~

 

I’ve been exchanging letters regularly with Scorpius. I can tell from the tone of his missives that he’s taking this separation far worse than I am. I don’t blame him. I’ve so much to distract me from the hole in my heart.  I’m living my dream, after all. I also don’t blame him when I receive this letter while I’m in Germany:

 

 

_Dearest Albie,_

_I love you so much and all I want is to be with you.  But I can’t take this emptiness I feel in your absence. You gave me the freedom to fill the void, and so I will, though it kills me to do it._

_I have never kept secrets from you and I’m not about to start.  So you should know that Lorcan has been coming on strong ever since you left._

_I’m inclined to give him what he wants._

_I’m sorry, but I’m also not sorry.  I fucking miss you. Come home to me._

_Yours,_

_Scorpius_

Just because I don’t blame him for being with Lorcan, doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.  In fact, I hate it.  I hate Lorcan. I hate the idea of him putting his hands all over my Scorpius, let alone putting anything inside of him. It makes me so furious that I lash out the only way I know how.  I put on our best show yet in Berlin.  With every song, I scream my claim on Scorpius from hundreds of miles away. Every song is for him, as it has always been.  At the end, I’m a sweaty, exhausted heap of frayed nerves and seething jealousy.

 

And there’s a boy backstage that finds that Just-Fucked-Some-Shit-Up look very attractive.

 

He’s got this angular, multi-tone blond hair thing going on and an accent that does _things_ to me that it normally wouldn’t under better circumstances. He’s got a few piercings in odd places that I’ve never seen before on anybody up close, most notably in his tongue. His upper arms are sleeved with intricate tattoos.  This guy is a million times more badass than I am, but he is oblivious to this fact.

 

I’ve already forgotten his name, not that I had any hope of pronouncing it properly.  He’s nineteen and he’s pretty – I want to say that he’s more attractive than Lorcan, but he’s not.  He’s definitely not as beautiful as Scorpius.  Nobody is.

 

German Boy gushes about my music – he even talks fervently about the stuff on YouTube that we haven’t performed on tour, so I know he’s a real fan and not just kissing my arse.  He flirts with me hard and I flirt right back, almost vindictively.

 

I lean close to him on the couch in the greenroom and drawl into his ear, “You should come back to my hotel.” The way I say it, there’s no question about what I want to do to him there.  As the words drip from my mouth, I’m disgusted with myself - this predatory sleazebag that wears my face and bears my name but isn’t me.

 

I tell my band-mates not to come back to the hotel room for a few hours and they’re happy to give me all night, considering how many times I’ve slept in bathtubs.  And I pretend that I’m thrilled, because it would make me look like more of a prick if I tell them that I only need enough time to get in, get off, and kick him out.

 

During the taxi ride from the venue to the hotel, I drink a bottle of some German brew that I only find palatable because it’s potent and I want to get numb.  He notices me wincing every time I take a deep swig.

 

“I can’t drink that stuff.  It tastes like arse,” he jokes.

 

Because I’m tipsy and a bit of a dick tonight, I quirk my brow and say, “Do you even know what arse tastes like? Because I do, and this doesn’t taste like arse.”

 

He giggles and asks, “Is that bad, or is that good?”

 

“This,” I begin, holding out the bottle, offering him some, “is really bad.”  He takes a sip from the proffered bottle and I declare, “When arse is good, it doesn’t taste like this.”  I want to throw up from the sound of my own voice.  I’m playing into the rock star stereotype, strutting like a rooster that’s been around the yard several times.  Tonight I don’t want to be myself.  Because Real Me is hurting so badly that he can’t cope.

 

It’s the boy’s turn to lean in close and whisper in my ear. “Can I do a taste comparison?”

 

And that’s how, after some heavy snogging in the taxi, we end up in the hotel room shower.  I really don’t want to enjoy what he’s doing between my parted legs, on his knees, with his tongue - but _fuck_ – that little silver stud is making me forget that I’m only here out of unwarranted, misguided revenge.  My front is pressed up against the tile and I’ve been here before, though in a shower stall in the Slytherin boys’ dorms.  He works me thoroughly, back to front.  I want to say that Scorpius is better.  But Scorpius doesn’t have a heavenly little metal ball on his tongue. That fact shouldn’t feel like a triumph, but it does – it feels good enough that I clench my fingers in German Boy’s hair and treat his mouth like it’s a thing and not part of a person’s face.

 

When I’m not thinking about how fucking amazing the little metal ball feels sliding up and down my hard length, I’m thinking about Scorpius and the words of his letter.

 

_You gave me the freedom to fill the void, and so I will…_

 

The rage still burns so deeply inside me. Every time I close my eyes, my imagination torments me with visions of Lorcan looming like a vulture over Scorpius’ naked, prone form and I feel torn between wanting to cry and wanting to punch through the tiles of the shower. 

 

 

_I’m inclined to give him what he wants._

 

 

I can hear these words echoing in my head in Scorpius’ voice.  I realize that my anger is not really focused on Scorpius.  I love him so much that I will never feel this kind of scorching rage for him. I’m not even entirely angry with Lorcan. It dawns on me that the person I’m most angry with is myself. 

 

I’m the reason why Scorpius feels empty enough that he has to be filled with somebody else.  And the void inside him matches the void inside me.  So when the boy stands up and mumbles filthy things against the side of my neck with his German inflection that could make anything sound dirty, I’m inclined to give _him_ what he wants.

 

At seventeen, I’m still so naïve that I don’t stop to put on a condom until he asks me to.  I’ve never used one before, not just because I’ve never taken on this role, but because I’ve never had a reason to use one – Scorpius and I have only ever been with each other and nothing has ever come between us, quite literally.

 

We don’t stop to dry off from the shower before falling into bed.  The wet smacking sound of our bodies colliding makes the whole situation feel smutty. I’m not gentle in the least. His damp hair feels like eels in my fist.  The more I pull and the harder I push, the more he’s inspired to moan things in German that don’t need translation to understand.  I give him everything he wants without being coerced, but I somehow still feel like something is being stolen from me each time I drive into him with vindictive force. This is the complete opposite of what Scorpius and I do.  This is loveless.  This is fucking in its basest form.

 

In the end, I come just to be done with him. He tries to kiss me afterward, when we’re still breathless and falling away from one another. This arsehole that I am for tonight isn’t having it.  I love to cuddle and snog lazily in the afterglow more than anyone, but not with this stranger. I feel like I’ve betrayed Scorpius, even though I’m perfectly within the agreement that he and I made.  Kissing just seems wrong right now.

 

I can’t bring myself to make him leave and he ends up falling asleep next to me.  I stay up biting my nails and staring at the ceiling, wondering how I’m going to live with myself now.  I worry that Scorpius is feeling the same way next to Lorcan.

 

In the cold light of morning, the German boy’s face is in my lap and I can’t be arsed to tell him to stop.  I can barely be arsed to come in his mouth, and I probably wouldn’t be able to, had it not been for the still-novel sensation of that slippery metal ball.  I find myself wishing that my band mates had returned last night.  I’m tired of being alone with this bloke.

 

As if on cue, Connor, Jamaal, and Daniel stumble into the hotel room laughing, still drunk or high, or a combination of both.

 

“Oh shit – sorry, mate,” says Connor when he realizes what they’ve just walked into.  He starts to usher the boys back out of the room.

 

“It’s alright,” I say, “We have to get ready to leave for Hamburg anyway.” 

 

It’s a lie.  Our itinerary has us leaving for Hamburg in the afternoon. But it’s a good excuse to get German Boy to leave.  He gives me his mobile telephone number.  From what he’s written on the hotel stationery, I now know that his name is Huldiberaht, but I still have no idea how to pronounce it.  It doesn’t matter.  I’m never going to call him.  He tells me that he’ll be at the Hamburg show tonight and I try not to look upset by this fact.

 

“Can I see you after?” he asks. The coy grin on his face and the way his blond fringe falls over his eyes is so reminiscent of Scorpius that I could almost say _yes._

 

“Sorry, we leave for Dusseldorf tonight,” I say. Another lie.

 

 

Even though he’s in the front row, singing along to all of the songs tonight, I can’t look at him.  His presence is a reminder that I let myself become somebody I hate – somebody I don’t recognize in the mirror.

 

And I wonder if Scorpius will still recognize me when I see him again.


	2. The Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted separate from the Coevolution series as "He Should Treat You Like a Prince", but written in second person POV.

“Is he rough with you?” I ask softly, plying Scorpius’ neck with feather-light kisses, though I already know the answer.

 

Scorpius is sitting on my lap, facing the same way as I am, both of us perched at the foot of the bed.

 

Directly across the hotel room is a large mirror, and I glance up to watch Scorpius’ reflection. He knows I’m watching and displays his naked body accordingly. He’s watching me too. And I watch him lie to my reflection. He always lies flawlessly, even to my face. But Scorpius rarely lies to me.

 

His eyes glance up at the ceiling, if only briefly, when he answers my question and that’s how I know he’s lying. He’s hiding the truth, and I wonder why Scorpius still bothers to protect my heart – doesn’t he know it’s already been broken?

 

“No,” Scorpius answers, devoid of any emotion.

 

“He should treat you like a prince,” I say with a tinge of sorrow coloring my voice.

 

My hand is splayed across Scorpius’ pale throat, but my touch is gentle, reverent.

 

“He should kiss you,” I tell him with my lips ghosting bellow his earlobe.   “Like this.”

 

I kiss him wetly, closing my mouth over the side of his neck as if he were a ripe peach.

 

I taste him and the brine of his sweat makes me needy, makes me eager. I’m so hungry for him that I want to devour him quickly. But I know it’ll be months before I taste him again, so I take my time and savor him. I commit the flavor of his skin to memory and I know I’ll rely on that memory to get me through the rest of tour. I’ll use that memory when I wank in the little tour bus bathroom, or when I’m screwing a fanboy who says he’s inspired by my music. Ironic, considering Scorpius inspired _all_ of my music.

 

He cranes his neck like a white swan and turns his face towards mine. When my lips meet his for an open mouthed kiss, he is sweet and his tongue is soft, and it’s another memory for my growing cache. I manage to pull a quiet moan from his lips and it feels like a small triumph. I want to win all of his moans. I want to earn his hard cock. I want to be rewarded with his come deep inside me.

 

He pulls away, breathless, and rests the back of his head on my shoulder. “Lorcan doesn’t kiss. We only fuck.”

 

Scorpius, as much as he lies, also never minces words when he tells the truth. And it hurts. It feels like an icicle stabbing through my heart when he says that name. I die inside when Scorpius speaks so bluntly about what he and Scamander do, even though I already know Lorcan has been fucking my boyfriend for weeks. My relationship with Scorpius has been an open one since I went on tour with my band instead of going back to Hogwarts for seventh year. Lorcan has never been a secret and part of me wishes that Scorpius had just slept with him behind my back instead of telling me first.

 

It kills me to know that Lorcan isn’t treating Scorpius the way he deserves to be treated – Scorpius isn’t a sperm receptacle, he’s an angel, a deity, someone that needs to be cherished, worshiped, and loved. I hate to think of Scorpius being used like a two-knut whore, even though it’s mutual. And I worry about him because I know from Lysander that Lorcan can be violent.

 

My hand slides along the sweat-slicked expanse of Scorpius’ chest, down to his taut abdomen. I gently brush my fingertips through the soft tuft of lucent curls that sprout south of his navel. I can’t wait to bury my face in it and drink in his scent – more memories for the taking.

 

I whisper behind his ear as I slowly wrap my hand around Scorpius’ erection, letting each finger carefully find purchase around his hardness. “He doesn’t even touch you like this?”

 

His hips move above my lap, allowing his cock to slide through my grasp.

 

“No,” he says through a wispy moan. “I’m lucky if he eats my arse before he fucks me.”

 

We have always been honest with each other. Scorpius has never been afraid to tell me anything. Even though I appreciate his candor, it’s still painful to hear the dirty details. Still I ask, because evidently I’m so damn possessive that I have to know every little thing that happens to Scorpius while I’m gone.

 

I swirl my thumb around the weeping slit of Scorpius’ prick, which earns me a little sigh, and I ask, “He’s never sucked you off, then?”

 

“Lorcan doesn’t suck cock,” he answers flippantly, not the least bit disappointed or bitter.

 

I chuckle wryly. “Doesn’t kiss, doesn’t suck cock - Sounds like a bloody diva. I’m surprised he hasn’t made you sign a rider.” I’m stroking him slowly, twisting my fingers around the circumference, just the way Scorpius loves it, and he only faintly lets me know he’s unfamiliar with the term _rider_. I explain, “It’s a contract, sort of. A list of stuff that the band needs in order to perform. Like stuff for the stage, but also stuff backstage.”

 

“Stuff backstage, huh?” Scorpius drawls knowingly and teases, “Can you put boys on your rider?”

 

We exchange giggles and it feels so good to laugh with him again, to be that light-hearted and uninhibited.

 

“No, but Daniel made us list condoms on it,” I admit.

 

“Oh good. You better not bring muggle cooties back home to me,” he jokes.

 

We’re best mates again, laughing and teasing and making one another smile - Not jealous lovers, breaking each other’s hearts. And perhaps it’s a testament to the strength of our friendship and the power of our love that we can still be this way together, like nothing has changed, like we haven’t been separated from each other for the longest span of time ever in almost seven years.

 

When he lays me on the bed and pushes my legs back, my heart beats faster and harder than it ever has on stage. And as he sinks into me, stretches me, fills me, I consider giving up my rockstar dreams for him. Nothing could ever make me feel the way Scorpius does. Not even the euphoric rush of power I get when my voice soars with the wail of my guitar across a sea of screaming fans. Music is my life now. And Scorpius is what I live for. Scorpius is my everything.

 

He nibbles on my ankle – the one that’s perched on his shoulder. He hides his smirk behind it, and his voice is muffled by my skin, but his eyes do all the talking. “Did you miss this?” He knows the answer. He has always known the answer.

 

My reply sails on a breathy sigh. “ _Yes._ Oh _gods_ , I missed this so much. Missed _you_ so much.”

 

He thrusts in hard and deep and he makes damn sure I will miss it even more. He’s not gentle right now, and in fact, he might even be a little brutal. But I don’t care. I want to feel him between my legs for days. I urge him with my moans and coax him with my hips, lifting them off the bed to rest on his thighs. He digs his fingers into my waist and pulls me onto his lap while concurrently pushing into me. I feel him deeper than I’ve ever felt him before and it’s almost too much.

 

Scorpius has never intentionally hurt me. Even when he made me bleed the first time he had me, I know it was not his aim to harm me. Any pain he’s caused has been my own fault because I can never tell him to stop. We’re both so new at this and he’s still trying to figure things out - He doesn’t always know when I need him to stop or slow down or go easy. I know sex isn’t supposed to be about pain – at least I hope that’s the case – but I let him push me to the edge of what I can tolerate. Because I think it will be more meaningful if it hurts – if I can hang on to the exquisite emotion of having him inside me by savoring that ache long after he’s finished.

 

My delicate skin feels like it’s tearing. We should probably stop to apply more lube. But then Scorpius drives into me at a slight angle and I literally see stars – like I’ve stood up too quickly and the blood is rushing from my head. He pulls an involuntary sound from me as he pushes a button deep inside me that intensifies my pleasure ten-fold.

 

“You okay, baby?” he purrs.

 

 _Fuck,_ I _love_ when Scorpius calls me _baby_. And he only ever does it when we’re together like this. I am more than okay. I could die right now and it would be totally fine because I’ve experienced heaven already.

 

I can’t even answer the question. My hands clench into the sheets and I moan something unintelligible.

 

His hips go still while he’s inside me. “I’m not hurting you, am I baby?” Something about the dark glimmer in his silver-blue eyes makes me think he rather likes exactly what he’s doing to me, regardless of any physical damage that may result.

 

I still can’t form words because the head of his cock is still applying pressure to that spot, making me feel like I could shoot my load completely hands-free. What I say is somewhere between a yes and a no. “Nnnyuuuh…”

 

He pulls back slightly and I mourn the loss of pressure. “I’m sorry, what?” he asks with an amused little grin.

 

My green eyes pierce him with a feral look. I grab his thighs, dig my blunt nails in, and practically growl, “Shut up and fuck me, Scor.”

 

He smirks and teases me. “Merlin’s beard; who’s being a diva now?”

 

Even though I never did get to grab more lube, I somehow feel more slick inside. And I hazard to guess that he’s made me bleed again. But it hardly matters – the pleasure he’s giving me is so intense that I couldn’t be arsed to care that I’m bleeding on white hotel sheets.

 

I fist my cock fiendishly as he plunders me deeply, and we’re both desperate to come now. I can tell he’s close by the staccato rhythm of his thrusts. We’ve always been in sync like this – able to sense where the other is in our race towards orgasm, able to hold out for one another so that we finish together.

 

He’s near the edge when he asks, breathless and wanton, “Promise me I’m the only one. The only one who does this to you.”

 

Even if Scorpius were not the only one I will allow inside me, nobody could ever fuck me the way he does. I am certain of this, right down to my bones, when I answer, “Only you. I promise, only you.”

 

I don’t have to ask him to reciprocate. It had always been part of the terms of our open relationship. But he reminds me anyway because it’s so bloody romantic and we both know it. “You’re the only one I’ll fuck, Albie. The only one I’ll make love to. You’re mine.” His hand is on my throat, carefully closing upon it without delivering too much pressure. And I know it is his way of asserting, if only just for his own peace of mind, that I belong to him.

 

As he delivers his final thrusts, he repeats between panting breaths, “Mine. You’re mine, Albus. Mine.” He comes with a strangled cry that is in perfect harmony with my own. And when he collapses on top of me, I can hear his barely audible whisper brushing hotly over my heaving chest, each word a pained, quiet breath. “Mine… Mine… Mine…”

 

 

We’ve managed to disengage from one another to clean ourselves up. In the aftermath of mind-blowing sex, we’ve both made a hot mess of the king-sized hotel room bed. I make visual confirmation that I had indeed been bleeding on the sheets and I swiftly try to hide the evidence while reaching for my wand to perform a quick cleaning charm. But Scorpius catches on and the expression on his face is completely broken.

 

“Oh, Albie, I’m so sorry,” he sighs as he swallows me up in an all-encompassing embrace. He whispers into my hair, “Why do you let me do that to you? You’re not supposed to bleed.”

 

“Because I love you,” I whimper. My eyes get misty because I feel like I’ve disappointed him somehow.

 

“No,” he whines insistently, “No, no, no.” He clutches me more firmly, as if he could hug the pain away, which I am only now feeling since the adrenaline has been flushed away. “I don’t want to hurt you. You can’t let me hurt you, Al. You’ve got to tell me to stop when I’m hurting you because I honestly didn’t know.”

 

Something inside me crumbles and collapses. The façade I’d been putting up shatters and I can hardly keep myself from going limp in Scorpius’ arms.

 

I pull back slightly so that our eyes can meet. “Then stop.” The tears fall hotly along my still-reddened cheeks. “You’re hurting me, and I want you to stop.”

 

The furrow between Scorpius’ brow deepens with anguish and confusion.

 

“I know I’m the one that suggested we have an open relationship,” I explain, “I wanted you to be free while I was gone. I thought it would be unfair for me to make you wait. But I can’t take it.” I put my hand on his chest and I let out a shuddering exhale. “It _hurts._ ”

 

He pulls me back in and I sob quietly against his chest as he holds me. “It hurts so much, Scor. I want you to stop. I think about you with Lorcan and it makes me want to die,” I lament, my voice pained and weak.

 

“Albie… My Albie…,” he says as he gently tangles his fingers in the back of my hair. He admits softly, “It hurts me too.”

 

“So why are you doing it? What are you even getting out of it?” I don’t mean to be belligerent, but it’s all coming out now and I can’t stop it. “He won’t even fucking kiss you or get you off. What the Hell is that about? Why do you even bother?”

 

“Why?” the tone of his voice rises and his fingers stop plying my hair. “Why?” he repeats and pulls out of the hug to glare at me incredulously. “Because I’ve never spent more than two weeks away from you in all the time I’ve known you. Because I should be sharing my last year at Hogwarts with you, but you’re not there. Because I go to bed every night without you, next to your empty bed, and I wake up _alone_. Because I’d go fucking insane if I didn’t have Lorcan’s prick up my arse to distract me from how badly it fucking hurts to be without you.”

 

He’s crying now and it’s killing me. I hold his head in my hands and press my forehead to his. “I’m sorry,” I breathe out. “This is stupid. Let’s stop hurting each other.”

 

“Please,” he insists, however his voice is ragged and faint. “Come back.”

 

I sigh and stare up at the ceiling feeling helpless. “I can’t. I’m under contract.” I know it’s a cold and awful thing to say, even if it is true.

 

“Fuck your contract, Albie. I need you.” He folds an arm around the back of my neck and I can feel his tears dripping on the back of my shoulder. It makes me shiver all the way down to my soul.

 

Then it hits me. The revelation is so logical that I feel like a complete arse for not thinking of it before I left for tour. “The contract. Oh my gods, the rider. I’m entitled to a personal assistant. I didn’t put it in the contract – my manager did. I didn’t hire one because I thought it was stupid – I’m just the opening act, for fucks sake - and I didn’t want some muggle to be all up in my business anyway. But you – you, Scor – you’re perfect for the job.”

 

His eyes begin to light up and the corner of his mouth quirks with amusement. “You’re going to hire me? To do what? Bring you coffee? Pick up your laundry?”

 

“No,” I giggle. “I mean, I _will_ hire you. But you’re not going to do shit – other than be my boyfriend and go on tour with me.”

 

He raises his brow dubiously. “And what about school?”

 

“You can always go back and finish later. Your dad donated so much money to Hogwarts, you could probably go for another four years if you wanted.”

 

“And what makes you think my father would even let me leave school halfway through the year and run away with you and your band?” he asks, quirking a skeptical brow.

 

“Oh, I’d never assume that,” I say, grinning wryly, “But I know you, Scor. And you’ve never done only what your father lets you do.”

 

We’re both smirking impishly now and giggling like schoolboys, because, well, we _are_ schoolboys.

 

“I always did want to leave school with a bang. What better way to do that than to ditch the place for my rockstar boyfriend?”

 

He kisses me, and I taste the sweet promise of tomorrow on his smiling lips. I don’t have to, but I commit it to memory anyway. It will probably make a good song, after all.


	3. A Spoon, A Guitar, And This Guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this story contains a fake Rolling Stone magazine article.

**Coevolution: A Spoon, A Guitar, And This Guy**

 

A year ago, if somebody had told me that I’d be doing an interview with Rolling Stone while lounging at the pool deck on the roof of a luxury resort hotel in Las Vegas, I would have laughed.  That’s because the life I’m living right now is so unbelievable that I have to make some sort of confirmation each morning that I’m not dreaming.

 

The White Lies are winding down our first headlining tour in the United States.  A year ago, we were opening up for You Handsome Devils on their tour.  By some miracle, between now and then, we got signed to a major label in London, recorded an album, and started selling out the handful of club shows we headlined in the UK.  Gone are the days of traveling around Europe on a cramped coach bus, sleeping like sardines in one hotel room.  In the states, everything is bigger and we don’t even have to share.

 

But, of course, I _do_ share. I’ve been sharing every moment with Scorpius since he dropped out of school and joined me on the road. Every new experience, every newfound joy, every glorious moment, every hotel room, every airplane ride, I share with him.

 

He can hardly stand to be a few yards away from me, so I’m inclined to let him share my lounge chair.  Anyway, I’d never pass up the opportunity to snuggle with Scorpius when there’s downtime.  We have one gig in Las Vegas, but we’re spending a few nights here because, well, it’s _Vegas, baby_.  So Scorpius and I are basking in the summer sun, soaking up the heat like cold-blooded lizards before we have to go back to England, which is chilly compared to this desert oasis.  He’s wearing a little swimsuit that makes me twitch in my own shorts.  His sun kissed, oil-slicked body slides next to mine every time one of us reaches for a frozen margarita.

 

Our semi-public show of affection raises a brow or two, but not much seems to faze people here.  Maybe it’s because Las Vegas is the sort of place where anything goes. We certainly aren’t bothering Jake, the American bloke interviewing me.  I think he’s looking more at Scorpius than he’s looking at me, not that I blame him.

 

Jake asks me some pretty typical questions.  I tell him about the band’s beginnings.  He wants to know more about my personal background. My publicist, Miranda, who happens to be a witch, knows how important it is to uphold the statute of secrecy and she’s made me run through the standard story to tell the muggles so many times that I can recite it in my sleep.  And by now, when I spin my half-truths, I do it so well that I can even start to believe my own bullshit.

 

My name is Albus Severus – it’s a stage name. I’ll never tell you my real name because Dad is a big-fucking-deal agent for MI-5.  Mum writes for a sports blog.  My big brother is an up-and-coming professional rugby player and my little sister is still at school.  I grew up in a sleepy little town in the West Country of England. Spent six years at boarding school in Scotland before I dropped out.

 

The only lie I can’t tell with a straight face is the one about Scorpius, and I’ve given up trying.  It’s kind of a joke really.  Nobody believes it and I don’t expect them to.

 

“Who’s he?” Jake asks, nudging his little recording device at Scorpius.

 

“This is Scor.  He’s my personal assistant,” I say with a little smirk as I nuzzle his neck. Scorpius giggles softly. “He works very hard for me,” I drawl against his skin before kissing the sensitive spot just below his ear.

 

“Mmm _so_ hard,” Scorpius agrees with a little moan.

 

Jake doesn’t even flinch.  He’s probably seen worse behavior from rockstars.  “What is it that you do for Albus, Scor?”

 

“I make sure he comes,” Scorpius begins, smiling as he pauses for effect, “to every show on time.  And I make sure that his every need is attended to so that he can concentrate on performing.”

 

“His every need, huh?” Jake reiterates with a knowing grin. “Well, Scor,” he says as he puts away the recording device, “When you get bored of being a groupie, you should text me.  I might have some work for you.”

 

Scorpius sits up straight and pushes his cherry red Ray Bans to the top of his head to glare at Jake.  “I don’t know what sort of whore you think I am, but I am certainly _not_ a groupie,” he says indignantly.

 

I’m ready to punch this bloke in the face, but he quickly explains, never apologizing for his forwardness.  “My girlfriend works for a modeling agency.  I’m just saying you could probably do well for yourself in that world.  You can only go so far as rockstar arm candy.” 

 

Jake hands Scorpius a business card and we both scrutinize it.

 

 

_Dahlia Harmon_

_Casting Associate_

_Elite Model Management_

_New York_

_DahliaPH@EliteMGMT.com_

 

It looks entirely legitimate, but I’m still not happy that Jake is trying to lure Scorpius away.  It’s not that I don’t want Scorpius to have his own life and his own career. I just didn’t like the way Jake phrased it – like Scorpius only exists to look pretty by my side and could do so much better. 

 

Once we’re back in our hotel room and Scorpius gets my shorts off, I’m a little more inclined to forget about the awkward way that the Rolling Stone interview had ended.  But it keeps bothering me.

 

Scorpius is the love of my life.  He’s my best mate.  He’s my muse.  He’s my everything. But at the end of the day, does he have an identity outside of one that is attached to me?

 

_Scorpius H. Malfoy_

_Boyfriend_

_Sometimes London_

_ScorHM@Albus.com_

I’m lying on the bed after a shared shower, being lazy while I watch Scorpius getting dressed for our night on the town with the boys. He’s pacing around in just a pair of boxer briefs, foraging for something to wear amongst the mess of clothes spewing from our overstuffed duffle bags.  I will never tire of seeing Scorpius in a state of undress. And I can imagine that the whole world would appreciate seeing what I’m seeing, splayed across a magazine or pasted over a huge billboard advert.

 

He’s standing with an expression of confusion, brushing his thumb against his bottom lip.  I know him so well that I can tell his look means, _where the hell did I put that thing?_   But instead of helping him locate his favorite jeans or a certain shirt, I grab my mobile phone from the bedside table.  My tour manager had forced me to keep one, but I rarely use it.

 

“Stop right there – don’t move,” I say as I fiddle with the touchpad, trying to remember how to operate the phone’s camera function.

 

“Hm?”  Scorpius stills except for his eyes, which look up curiously.

 

I snap a photograph and marvel at how effortlessly perfect he looks, frozen on the screen.

 

“Are you taking nude photographs of me, Albus Severus?” Scorpius asks.

 

He moves his thumb between his teeth and I capture more pictures. It’s amazing how much of his personality comes through in a still photograph.  His ice-blue eyes look right through to my soul.  His smirk tells me he’s amused.  The little hint of his pink tongue touching the tip of his thumb tells me he’s up to no good.

 

“You’re not naked, so… No.”  I snap a few more after I’ve figured out how to zoom in.  “I’m not taking nude photographs of you, Scorpius Hyperion,” I reply cheekily.

 

I watch him through the screen as he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his underpants and slowly slides the garment down, grinning deviously all the while.  “Now you are… Pervert,” he teases.

 

I can’t resist capturing Scorpius in all of his unclad glory. He poses like he’s joking, bending his arms up by his head and threading his fingers in his wet hair as he pouts. But the amazing thing is, he looks like every pose is deliberately plied just for the camera.  And he looks good enough to devour – certainly good enough for public consumption.

 

Scorpius shamelessly runs his hands down his chest as he pierces me with a sultry stare.  Now he’s posing just for me, displaying himself in scandalous ways, getting the exact reaction out of me that he’d intended.  “ _Fuck_ ,” I groan.

 

He crawls onto the bed and I’m about to toss the phone aside, but he takes it from me.  “Did you know you can make moving pictures with this thing?  Like on the telly?”

 

He’s recording a video of me now.  I bite my lip coyly and glance away blushing, putting my hand out towards the device.  “I don’t want silly moving pictures of myself on my mobile.”

 

He playfully smacks my hand out of the way.  “Oh stop. We’re making a movie of us. Tell everybody on the other side of the telly-vision who we are and about our plans to take over the world.” He lies down next to me and manipulates the mobile so that we’re looking at our moving image on the screen as it is being captured.

 

“Hello, my name is Albie.  And I intend to take over the world with the sheer power of a spoon, a guitar, and this guy here.”  I point to Scorpius and grin too wide, because that’s what people do when they make silly videos.

 

“Bonjour, je me appelle Scorpius.  And I intend to rock this guys world with the sheer power of my mouth.”  He flashes an exaggerated, cheeky wink and hands back my mobile.

 

I keep shooting as Scorpius slithers down my body and does things that should probably not stay on my phone.  “Are we making what the muggles call a _sex tape_ , Scor?  Fuck, that’s so rockstar,” I half joke.  I only say _half_ , because I haven’t stopped recording, even when he takes my awakening arousal in his hand and plies it with wet, open-mouthed kisses.

 

“Let’s send this to Jake and say, _is this the sort of modeling you think I should do?_ ” I know he’s kidding, but I can see a glimmer of mischief shining in his eyes that makes me wonder if he really would do it out of spite.

 

“You’re really good,” I groan distractedly.

 

He swirls his tongue around the head and says, “I know.”

 

“I mean, you make a really good picture.  You’re a natural model,” I explain.

 

“I know,” he says again, this time grinning smugly before taking me into his mouth.

 

“Gods, I love you,” I breathe out.

 

I abandon the mobile phone in favor of watching the spectacle with my own eyes.

 

~//~

 

 

**_The Boy With A Thorn In His Side_ **

**_by Jake Klein_ **

**_Photos by Cecilie Harris_ **

****

_There’s something about Albus Severus that makes him ageless.  The charming front of British foursome, The White Lies, is both a Lost Boy from Neverland and an ambitious, self-made man. Somehow, he embodies both the kid that never grew up, and the kid that grew up too soon. Interacting with him reveals that he has the heart and soul of someone older than eighteen years, yet hasn’t been corrupted by time._

_“I’ve been living away from home since I was eleven, so going on tour at seventeen wasn’t that big of a deal, as far as being away from my parents,” Albus told me at the tail end of the band’s first headlining tour and first foray into North America following the heels of a tour supporting You Handsome Devils. “When you’re on tour, it’s not that different from being away at school.  The boys sort of take care of each other and the adults make sure you go home in one piece.”_

_Albus attended a Scottish boarding school hundreds of miles away from his parents' home in the English countryside.  Before he was to begin his seventh and final year at the school, he dropped out to open up for You Handsome Devils on their European tour. This was before The White Lies had even released an album other than their collection of home recordings, which they had been distributing electronically for free._

_They were pop-punk YouTube rising stars with boy-band good looks, hundreds of channel subscribers, and thousands of hits on their homemade basement recorded videos, even before they performed their first gig at their local hometown pub’s open mic night._

_“We were around fourteen and fifteen-years-old.  We couldn’t be in the pub without our parents.  We invited all of our friends to the show, and all of them had to bring their parents as well.  It felt like a cross between a piano recital and a school dance with too many chaperones.”_

_Most of the band’s early videos are still online - if not on their official YouTube channel, then posted by fans.  Watching them, it’s easy to see what caught the attention of White Lies producer and lead singer of You Handsome Devils, Rory Dolan.  The video of their Handsome Devils cover song, “Give It To Me”, shows a fifteen-year-old Albus blossoming over the span of four minutes, from a baby-faced ingénue to a cheeky charmer who emotes precociously for the camera while he invites the viewer to “Give it to me nice and slow – Push me – See how far I’ll go”. Albus authentically replicates Dolan’s restless energy while evoking the sensuality of British rock icons that pre-date him by generations._

_To see Albus on stage now, you’d still glimpse a hint of that innocence and naivety, but you’d wonder if it were just an act.  Albus speaks candidly of his year growing up on the road but it is difficult to get a sense of how much of his maturity is a product of experience and how much is overcompensation.  Like a boy wearing a suit that’s just slightly too big for him, Albus takes on his role as leader of the band very seriously – as seriously as a teenager can in the absence of parental supervision._

_When talking to Albus and his band mates, what may strike you is their absence of entitlement. At first glance, The White Lies are a bunch of reckless teenage boys that believe they can do whatever they want – no parents, no rules, no limits.  But you get the sense that Albus, Connor, Jamaal, and Daniel all know that they’re here, on the top of the charts and selling out shows, living the rockstar lifestyle, not because they inherently should be, but because they are getting away with it by the skin of their teeth.  Chalk it up to a humbling boarding school upbringing and an austere British culture._

_“I keep wondering when I’m going to get in trouble,” says Albus of the shenanigans that the band and their entourage get up to on tour.  “I keep waiting for that call from my mum, telling me ‘You come home this instant, young man!’ We do these things we probably shouldn’t be doing, but we keep doing them because we know it’s going to end before we know it. One day we’re trashing hotel rooms, the next day our mothers are screaming at us to make our beds.  It’s like living in two worlds.  One’s a fantasy.”_

_The shenanigans are exactly what you’d think they’d be amongst boys who are hell bent on adventure in the New World – raucous backstage parties at night and impromptu field trips during the day, punctuated by sold-out shows at top music venues. But beneath the surface of hedonistic revelry, there’s a hidden mechanism of control.  You can’t send a bunch of underage kids on tour for months without some sort of regulation._

_The woman in the smart dress suit toting an iPad who is constantly babbling through a blue tooth connection and is never too far from the band, but is far enough that they can forget she’s there – that’s Miranda Cortez, the band’s Public Relations person, and surrogate mother of sorts.  She ushers the boys to interviews and events, all while making sure they call their parents weekly.   Miranda does quite a bit of damage control and media spin when things get out of hand on social media.  The White Lies are notorious for live blogging after-parties on their Twitter and Instagram accounts, complete with incriminating photos and video._

_The burly gentleman with a shaved head wearing all black that looks like a bouncer at a high-end nightclub who’s always a step behind the band – that’s Holden Wilson. He’s their tour manager, and takes on the role of dad.  He’s the sort of dad that stands back and lets his sons rough house, then swoops in when somebody gets hurt.  You have to wonder how much his neck hurts from turning a blind eye to all the underage drinking. But to be fair, the legal drinking age in their native country is eighteen, and all of the boys are of age._

_Holden is the guy you’d have to go through if you wanted to get backstage or into one of the band’s after parties.  The boys are all unattached, at least on paper, and most are not averse to entertaining female fans after their shows.  Holden makes sure the girls that get in are of age and get home safe, even if that entails calling taxis from the hotel the morning after.  It’s no surprise that Holden has a ten-year-old daughter back home in England._

_And then there’s Scor.  He doesn’t have a last name – not one that he’ll give out to anybody.  He’s tall, blonde, pretty, and apparently surgically attached to Albus. Nobody really knows what his role is, and nobody, not even Miranda, will tell you anything but an obvious cover. Scor is on the books as Personal Assistant to Albus Severus.  If you badger Holden enough, he’ll tell you that Scor is legitimately on the payroll. If you ask Scor what he does, he will tell you with an impish smirk that he personally wakes up Albus every day – Albus is apparently an absolute bear in the morning – and makes sure Albus gets to all his engagements on time._

_Watching Albus and Scor cozied up together on a lounge chair on the pool deck of The Palms Resort in Las Vegas, it becomes apparent from all the PDA, that Scor is a lot more than Albus’ PA.  There’s a bit of mystery and speculation surrounding Albus’ sexuality and his relationship with Scor.  Miranda’s line is that Scor is Albus’ childhood best friend from boarding school._

_When you ask either Albus or Miranda about Al’s sexuality, both of them will give you an ambiguous answer.  “I’m still trying to figure myself out,” Albus tells me while he lets his personal assistant get intimately close to his personal space._

_His songs are anything but ambiguous – you’ll not find a female pronoun in a single one. Albus’ lyrics range from the homoerotic innuendos in “Drowning” (“I wanna drown with you – choke me while I stroke you – take you all the way down”), to the allusions of boy-on-boy love in “Troublemaker” (“He’s reckless with my heart – I knew he was a troublemaker from the start”)._

_If you go through The White Lies’ catalogue of official and unofficial releases with a fine-tooth comb, you’ll find references to a beautiful boy with blond hair and blue eyes.  Scor has “muse” written all over him, though he’s generally treated amongst the others in the entourage like an elevated groupie.  You have to wonder if Scor is the love of Albus’ life or his arm-candy-best-friend. Thousands of female fans want to believe the latter._

_I ask him about his relationship with Rory during that first tour.  It is clear that Albus was never a protégée._

_“Rory and his boys were never our big brothers.   Even though they were in their twenties and we were these kids, they always treated us like equals.  Rory never tried to mold me into something.  He always respected that The White Lies were gonna do things the way we do. We made our own mistakes and learned our own lessons on the road and in the studio and I think that’s important, as far as growing up and such.”_

_I ask Albus if he’s done growing up._

_“I’ll never grow up,” he says with defiance that reveals a hint of fear of the inevitable and then adds, “But that’s not to say I won’t grow.”_

_Albus Severus is more grown up than even he knows._

_As tour is coming to a close and The White Lies go home to England, really go home, for the first time since they left at seventeen, the boys will find themselves in the same position as typical young men their age – navigating adulthood._

_“It’s gonna be weird when tour ends.  I’ve been touring back to back for a year, straight.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself.”_

_I ask him if things will be different at home._

_“Yeah, loads different.  Today I’m sipping a frozen margarita on a hotel roof.  Next week I’ll be sipping a frozen margarita on the patio with my mum.”_

_~//~_

 

The boys, Scorpius, and I hit the casino with a generous advance from Holden and it’s like we’re kids let loose in a penny arcade with all the coins in our piggy banks.  Except our money folds and we’re much better dressed.  We abandon our usual uniform of jeans and t-shirts in favor of donning well-fitting suits and shiny shoes.  We strut through the hotel corridors with the swagger of urban dandies. I’ve got my good luck charm by my side and he looks divine in a paired down tuxedo – all Scorpius needs is the shirt and the black trousers to look far more elegant than the rest of us in our ties and jackets. 

 

I think about what Jake had said earlier about Scor being arm candy. But I have to wonder who is wearing whom right now.  Because Scorpius is owning the room.  He makes heads turn and women bite their lips with undisguised desire as he walks by. He looks every bit like the aristocrat that he was raised to be, and I’m just the country boy who cleaned up nicely.

 

None of us know what we’re doing, of course. I’ve no idea how to play any of these games.  We feel silly playing the slots – the slots are for little old ladies.  We walk around with grown up drinks in our hands and descend on the crowded tables, trying to fake our way through card games, losing what small sums of money we’re willing to give up – because we’re smart enough to hold on to our American Dollars for _real_ fun. This is just the appetizer.

 

We come upon the craps table and Scorpius says excitedly, “Ooh! I know how to play this one! I watched my mum play in Monaco.”

 

“There’s _come_ on the table,” says Connor, nonchalantly.

 

“Eugh!  Really? How do you know it’s come?” I ask.

 

“Look.”  He points to the table, and sure enough, written on the green felt amongst boxes and numbers and other words is _COME_. I smack him playfully on the arm as we laugh.  “Prat.”

 

There’s a bloke wearing a casino uniform at the table spouting out nonsense and people putting their bets down, and I have no idea what’s going on. But somehow, Scorpius does.

 

On the next round, he places his bet and he’s handed a pair of red jewel toned dice.  He holds them up to my lips and says, “Blow.  For good luck.”

 

“That’s what _he_ said,” I mumble with a cheeky grin before blowing on the dice like I’m putting out a candle.

 

He throws the dice and they bounce around the table, each landing with one dot facing up.

 

“Snake eyes!” calls the bloke who’d been jabbering non-stop.

 

Scorpius gasps, “Bloody hell!  I won!  Slytherin for life!”

 

We exchange hearty high-fives, even though I’ve no idea how he’s won, what he’s won, or what the game has to do with snakes or Slytherins.

 

I’m no closer to understanding the game when he rolls again and wins a second time.  But he graciously bows out of making another bet after leaving a little tip for the dealer.

 

Scorpius slides a handful of gold casino chips into his trouser pocket. “Always leave the table when you’re winning, my mum says.”

 

We walk away and shuffle towards the roulette table. “So how much did you win, anyway?” I ask.

 

“Four-twenty-five,” Scorpius answers casually and shrugs.

 

“Four dollars and twenty five cents?” I ask with a little snort.

 

“No, four-hundred-and-twenty-five dollars,” he clarifies.

 

“Merlin’s tits, what are we still doing here?” I exclaim, “Let’s go spend your money properly.”

 

 

We end up at the nightclub on the top floor of the hotel. It’s the sort of place with a velvet rope, a long queue out the door, and a snooty looking host with a clipboard flanked by two bouncers.  There’s a strict dress code, but that’s not going to be a problem tonight. The problem is that we’re a gaggle of five boys and it looks like they’re only letting in girls right now.

 

“This is bollocks.  Don’t they know who we are?” Daniel shouts indignantly, completely facetiously, being a loud-mouthed arsehole just for fun, because The White Lies are all about drawing negative attention.

 

He’s totally joking, but it’s enough to make some of the people in the queue turn around.  A girl gasps and fumbles for her mobile phone as she drags her friends over to us. “Oh my god!  Can we take a picture with you?  I love you guys!”

 

We crowd together for an enormous group _selfie_ , Scorpius included.  Me and the boys make stupid faces like we always do when fans recognize us and want pictures. The girls giggle and act all star struck and it is still surreal to me that anyone thinks I’m a celebrity.

 

The host with the clipboard comes over to us and asks one of the girls, “Who are they?”

 

She answers as if the bloke should’ve known. “They’re like the biggest boy band from England.  Counter Clockwise. Like I can’t believe they’re not already on the guest list with a private room and stuff.”

 

I bite my lip hard to keep from laughing.  We’ve been mistaken for a boy band that makes really shitty pop music - The sort of rubbish that my little sister listens to. My mates catch on quickly and flow with it. 

 

Jamaal starts singing Counter Clockwise’s big hit and does some ridiculous dance move.  “Girl, I know, you know, I know you want it.”

 

The host nods slowly, “Oh, _that_ group. Yeah, I know that song.” He gestures with his hand, “Come with me.”

 

 

Inside the club, we proceed to besmirch Counter Clockwise’s good name. We’re given VIP treatment with a roped-off table and bottle service.  The craziest part is that Scorpius hasn’t had to drop a single penny of his casino winnings. It’s unclear if the club’s management really know which popular British import they’re spoiling. And I wonder what the captions will say on all the paparazzi photos and sneaky mobile phone shots that will likely be posted on the Internet tomorrow.

 

What I _do_ know is that Connor is posing for suggestive _selfies_ with girls wearing very small dresses, and posting them on his Twitter with the tag _#CounterClockwiseShagsAmericaBlind._ Miranda is going to have a fit. Since she’s already bound to be sore with us tomorrow, and it’s one of the last stops on our tour, I have no qualms about giving the muggle world the sort of show that Miranda had strongly discouraged.

 

 

In the morning, Scorpius and I wake up in our hotel room, in our usual state of complete undress, with horrible hangovers and only a vague recollection of what we got up to last night.  But it’s all over social media, as Miranda is quick to point out as she throws her expected fit over breakfast, which consists of lots of hangover potion and toast, served in bed with a side of unfiltered indignation and disappointment.

 

Apparently, it had been reported that The White Lies purposely posed as the British boy band Counter Clockwise in a premeditated ploy to get into clubs and fuck shit up.  Apparently, there are pictures all over the world wide web of me giving Scorpius a lap dance and Connor being less than respectful to several intoxicated girls.

 

Miranda shows us the photos on her iPad like she’s rubbing our noses in it. Sure enough, there are pictures of me straddling Scorpius’ lap on the VIP couch, complete with dollar bills shoved down the front of my unzipped trousers.

 

“Oh my gods, that’s brilliant,” I snort.  “How much money did I make?”

 

“Four-hundred-and-twenty-five dollars,” Scorpius giggles, “You were making it rain.”

 

“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” Miranda says sarcastically. “Because there’s more.”

 

“More photos?” I ask sheepishly.

 

She doesn’t answer.  Instead she hands me a sheet of paper.  It looks like some sort of invoice from the hotel.  “You left the club last night without paying. Jamaal opened a tab under the name Markie Barnes.  One of the members of Counter Clockwise.”

 

This time I can’t control my laughter.  I really shouldn’t laugh, especially when Miranda is so angry. But, come on – that’s hilarious. “The way they were treating us, we thought we were getting comped or something.”

 

“You managed to rack up a bill in the thousands,” Miranda points out, “And by my calculations, that adds up to all of your advances from Holden put together, provided you didn’t blow it all before getting to the club.”

 

“We gambled a little, but Scor won four-hundred-something dollars,” I say, not really convinced that it will make a difference to Miranda.

 

“Nope.  We spent that after we left the club,” Scorpius says.

 

I vaguely remember leaving the club.  I recall getting into a taxi with a bottle of champagne. “Spent it on what?”

 

Scorpius gives me a pointed look.  “You really don’t remember?”

 

I shake my head worriedly.  He throws off the covers and gets out of bed, disregarding his nudity – it’s nothing Miranda hasn’t seen before.  There’s a wet looking square bandage on his hip, which he removes to reveal a freshly inked tattoo that’s still a bit red around the edges and covered in ointment.

 

It’s really cute – it looks sort of like half of a hunting arrow without the arrow head, done tastefully and understatedly in black ink – but I cover my mouth and gasp in shock anyway.  “Fucking hell – you got a tattoo!”

 

Scorpius corrects me.  “ _We_ got a tattoo.”

 

And that’s when I realize that there’s an itchy feeling in exactly the same place on my body where Scorpius has his tattoo.  I leap out of bed, nearly upending the tray of toast and potions, and unveil the complementary half of Scorpius’ arrow.

 

I gasp again, this time in horror.  “Shit.  My parents are going to kill me.”

 

“Not if I kill you first,” says Miranda.  “I’m not even done.  Put some clothes on.”

 

We do as instructed and she reveals to us what I hope is the last of our crimes.  “Did you mean to text two dozen photos and a two-minute video to Jake at Rolling Stone? Because he texted me last night at about three, asking that same question, assuming that it was either a mistake or a very bad joke.”

 

This leaves both Scorpius and I scratching our heads for a long minute until Scorpius is the one gasping in horror. “Oh FUCK.”  He frantically searches for my mobile and messes with it before handing it to me with a thoroughly guilty expression pinching his features. “I’m really sorry, Albie.”

 

Miranda rounds on us and looks over my shoulder as I scroll through a barrage of text messages that Scorpius had apparently sent to Jake. The most recent ones are at the top and it starts with a video attachment.  I can’t quite remember what the video had been, so I play it.

 

There’s me, looking all embarrassed.  There’s me and Scor being silly on the bed. There goes Scorpius, down… down…

 

“Oh gods.  You didn’t.” I stop the video and glance at Scorpius with an equally dismayed expression.  I scroll back to the previous message, which is an attachment of a nude photo of Scorpius. And another nude photo, and another. The first message in the chain reads:

 

_Is this the sort of modeling you think Scor should do?_

Scorpius whimpers sheepishly, “I’m sorry, baby. I was drunk.  I wasn’t thinking.”

 

“Brilliant,” says Miranda, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “I’m going to have to either bribe Jake to trash that message, or somehow alter his memory magically. Probably both. That is, if he hasn’t already sold the images. But either way, your secret’s out.”

 

“It’s hardly a secret,” I scoff.

 

“Well, it was still ambiguous enough for your American fanbase,” Miranda says, “Until now.  This is probably going to be your last tour.  You can thank your little _boyfriend_ for that.” She looks Scorpius up and down with disdain.

 

“Back off,” I say, getting in between Miranda and Scorpius who look like they’re about to exchange some heated words.  “We made some mistakes, but it’s going to be okay.”

 

But Miranda doesn’t back off.  “The biggest mistake you made was bringing _him_ on tour.”

 

Scorpius gets irate.  “Don’t make me get my wand out. I know a few hexes.”

 

Miranda straightens and quirks a brow at Scorpius. “Oh, really?  What are you going to do, Mr. Hogwarts Drop-out? What sixth year spell are you going to hit me with?  _Rictus Sempra_?”

 

Scorpius looks fit to either cry or smack Miranda across the face and all I can do is hold him back.

 

She doesn’t let up and says, “Go back to school, Scorpius. Make something of yourself. Stop riding on Albus’ coat tails. You’re holding him back.”

 

That’s when Scorpius yanks out of my arms, storms off to the bathroom, and slams the door.

 

 

He won’t come out for anything.  Finally, after an hour, I give up.  I have to work on damage control with Miranda and Connor anyway. When I return to the room, Scorpius is gone. He has a mobile phone for emergencies, but uses it even less than I do.  But I ring him anyway, just in case.  It goes straight to voice mail.  It’s probably not even on.

 

I have several hours before I have to be at the venue for sound check, so I spend it wandering The Strip, looking for Scorpius, even though I know it is very unlikely I’ll find him.  It would be so easy to get lost and swallowed up in this densely packed glittering city.

 

But by some miracle or fate, I find him in front of the massive fountains outside The Bellagio.  He’s leaning his arms on the rails, watching the water dance.  I stand next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, though we are no longer equal in height.  He’s nearly a head taller than me.  I wonder how he managed to grow so much this year without me realizing it.

 

“The muggles say that if you throw a coin in a fountain and make a wish, your wish will come true,” I tell him.

 

“So if I throw a shit-ton of coins in this fountain, do you think I can undo what I’ve done?” Scorpius says, still gazing at the jets of water that rise into the air and weave together like ribbons.

 

I try to reassure him, hoping he can put things into perspective the way I have.  “In the scheme of things, it’s really not that bad, Scor.  It’ll be okay.  Promise.”

 

“I don’t know, Albie,” he turns to me and I can tell from the redness in his eyes that he had been crying, “I might have just ruined your career with my selfishness.”

 

I cup his face gently with my hand and say, “You haven’t ruined my career.  I might lose a few shallow fans.  Good riddance to them. People aren’t going to suddenly stop liking my music because I fancy boys – well, _one_ boy.”

 

He smiles softly and I know he’s starting to see things my way, rather than letting Miranda’s harsh words continue to get to him. “I don’t want to hold you back, though.”

 

“You’re not.  I can’t do this without you.  I don’t _want_ to do this without you,” I insist, taking his face in both my hands now, “I don’t ever want to do anything without you.”

 

His smile brightens and he gives me a tiny laugh. “Those pictures, though. If they get out, my parents are going to lock me up in the basement.”

 

I heave a long exhale.  “Let Miranda work her magic.  She’ll keep those pictures from spreading.”

 

“It’ll take a miracle.  Things get around fast here,” Scorpius says with a hopeless sigh.

 

“Well… make a wish.  This is a big-arse fountain.  Maybe it’ll grant a big-arse wish.”  I reach into the pocket of my jeans, pull out a handful of muggle coins, and a crazy idea springs forth from my head.  I turn my back on Scorpius and take an inordinate amount of time selecting the right coins, during which Scorpius gets impatient. 

 

“Quit your stalling, Albie.  Any coin will do,” he says.

 

I find two shiny twenty-five-cent coins.  I hand one to Scorpius and keep one for myself. “One wish for you, and one wish for me.”

 

“You go first,” Scorpius insists, “I want to make sure I get the wording right in my head so I don’t accidentally wish for Jake’s entire memory to be obliviated.”

 

I close my eyes and squeeze the coin in my hands for several long seconds.  “Blow,” I say, holding the coin between my fingers at Scorpius’ lips.  “For good luck.”  He blows on it swiftly and I toss the coin into the fountain.

 

“Your turn,” I say with a little smile.  “Make it good.”  And my heart stutters in my chest to a gallop rhythm.

 

Scorpius closes his eyes and holds the coin in a fist by his lips. His eyes flash open and he asks me to blow on the coin.  My throat feels dry as I blow and my voice is slightly cracked when I say, “You should read the coin before you throw it.  I’m pretty sure that’s part of the muggle tradition.”

 

He gives me a sideways glance but humors me anyway. Instead of the usual words that circle the edge of the coin, it says: 

 

_Marry me, Scorpius._

He gasps and his eyes go wide.  “Really?”

 

I nod and smile coyly.  “Please?”

 

Scorpius throws his arms around me and kisses me so firmly that I feel like I’m going to fall – or maybe it’s just my nerves making me weak in the knees.  When he pulls away, he’s crying again, but his smile is so bright that it makes his eyes twinkle in the desert sun.

 

“Of course,” he answers.

 

And I release the breath that I’d been holding for too long. I take him into the fold of my embrace and find myself crying as well – I don’t even know why – Deep in my heart, I always knew Scorpius would say _yes_.

 

“Don’t forget to make your wish,” I remind him.

 

“I’m not throwing this coin in the fountain – I’m keeping it forever,” he says, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. “What did you wish for?” he asks.

 

“You,” I reply.

 

“That’s what I was going to wish for too,” he admits.

 

 

Back in the hotel room, we’re naked again because Scorpius insists on fucking his husband-to-be absolutely senseless.  Not that I’m complaining.

 

“I want to show you something,” he says as we’re kissing heatedly.

 

He takes me by the hand and pulls me over to the large mirror. He turns me so that I’m facing away from him. He removes the bandages from our tattoos. We’re nestled closely like spoons as he holds me tight against his body.  I look at our reflection in the mirror.  We’re perfect together.

 

With a little bit of finesse, Scorpius moves his body in a way that aligns our tattoos and incidentally makes me shiver with want. His half of the arrow fits with my half of the arrow. 

 

“We’re human puzzle pieces,” he says, “We belong together.”

 

My smile is stupid and wide.  Scorpius never ceases to impress me with his brilliance. I tilt my head back, offering him my lips. 

 

“Can I just marry you, erm, tomorrow?  Would that be cool with you?” 

 

I’m kidding. 

 

But maybe I don’t have to be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written days before marriage equality was recognized in the state of Nevada. Marriage equality is recognized across the whole country now, but for the sake of story-telling, we're going to go with the laws as they were when I wrote this in January 2015.


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